Sunday, September 24, 2006

Rigamarole - A Foot In The Crease - Episode 2.2

www.afootinthecrease.com

What can you say about the New York Islanders? For years, people said the best move former GM Mike Millbury could make to help his team would be to lock himself in a small room without a phone, a fax machine or a computer preventing him from continuing to make misguided moves. See Luongo and Jokinen to Florida as prime example number 1. Though since Millbury’s departure at the end of last season, things have only got stranger on Long Island.

Earlier this spring when Ted Nolan and Neil Smith were hired to take over as head coach and general manager respectively, it seemed that finally the Islanders were starting to make some good decisions. Nolan, a great coach who had been out of hockey for nearly eight years, richly deserved an opportunity and Smith was already a legend in another part of New York for playing an instrumental part in assembling the team that broke the Rangers long Cup drought in 1994.

But that’s wear the smart moves stopped. Shockingly, six weeks into his tenure, Smith was fired for his philosophical opposition to our business model according to owner Charles Wang. Yes, Smith had a bad habit of wanting to run a hockey team properly and that just can’t be tolerated on Long Island. Instead, Wang saw fit to replace him with last season’s bad up goalie, Garth Snow. This lunacy resulted in the resignation of another smart hockey man in Pat Lafontaine.

When Rick Dipietro signed a 15 year deal earlier this week, everything started to make a little more sense. Wang, who seems to have a soft spot for Dipietro, had discussed a deal of this length last off season. It’s possible that when Wang asked Smith to revisit that type of deal, Smith suggested he might as well try to convince Bryan Trottier to come out of retirement. At that point Wang likely decided he didn’t need a GM but a puppet instead to run the team the way he wanted. No experience needed; hellllllooooo Garth Snow. But hey, all that was just rigamarole.

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